Saturday, June 28, 2008

I have been tagged by Sanket with this weird tag where i have to pick up the nearest book turn to page 123 find the fifth sentence and post the next three sentences. Reminds me of the movie Taare zameen par, this particular scene where aamir tells ishaan's parents that he is dyslexic and hence cannot process multiple instructions like turn to this page, so and so paragraph, so and so line.

Can i like pretend i am dyslexic and skip this tag?? :P (rolling eyes)!! but seriously i wonder who thinks of SAD tags like this. i mean it would at least make sense if you were asked to make your own story out of those three lines or something, but just writing three lines??? SAD!!! speaks of the tag maker's abject lack of creativity. Anyway here goes the shortest tag in this world.

The nearest book is Jhumpa Lahiri's "unaccustomed earth" gifted to me by Akiiiii!! :) I have COMPLETELY fallen in love with the way she writes. i mean her stories are about ordinary people and the ordinary lives they lead but the way she writes it is extraordinary. i mean she can write about something as mundane as a housewife washing the dishes but the way she writes it i am like WOW!! her stories might not be great but the reading experience is out of this world!! :)

anyway here goes fifth line of page 123

He saw an open box on the table containing a few eclairs. The sight made his stomach churn up in hunger, and he picked one up, consumed it without pause.

"Looks like we missed brunch" Megan said. After a while she added. "You have chocolate icing around your mouth"

Lacking a napkin or the wipes he always had with him when was with the girls. he drew the back of his hand across his lips.

Phew!! done!! and for a change i tag no one!! but if you want to u can take up this tag!! :)

Monday, June 23, 2008

1. Everyday when I look at the mirror I see the face of a stranger. There are no profound implications of this statement. Its just that I have been shedding so much hair that everyday when I look atthe mirror I see that my hair line has receded further and have trouble in recognizing myself. It reminds me of the protagonist in the movie crouching tiger hidden dragon whose hairline used to start from the middle of his forehead. I used to crack up every time I looked at him when the movie got released but something tells me that pretty soon I will be like that given the exponential rate at which my hair is falling.

2. I have been reading gerrald durrell’s “my family and other animals gifted very lovingly to me on my birthday and I just LOVE the book. I dunno how I hadn’t heard of gerrald durrell so many days. He is one helluva writer and I would rate him next only to PGW, James Herriott and Richard Gordon in humor writing. Typical clean English humor. I just discovered that I seem to enjoy all books which either deal with animals or talks about them (doesn’t help that my favorite character in PGW is the empress of blandings or that I grew up reading tinkle where kalia the crow was my favorite character!!) what’s wrong with me? I mean I have heard sentimental and romantic people read mills and boons, adventurous people read spy, detective or adventure novels, serious people read philosophical books etc. and I read animal books. So where does that put me? (P.S: on second thoughts don’t answer that question. Milinta and Kilpauk Mental, I don’t, I repeat DON’T want any wise cracks in the comments section about this from you guys. I was just thinking aloud)

3. This weekend I attended the marriage of a very close friend in sivakasi. She is 22. How, how HOW can people get married at the tender age of 22? As her fiancé tied the mangalsutra around her neck I suddenly felt like shouting and saying “Stop!! This is illegal. This is child marriage” but all I could manage was a whimper and a sob as she went from Miss to Mrs in a few seconds. Sigh!! I mean I have known her for five years and she is the kind of person who cant even fold a bed sheet properly, let alone cook and clean and the very thought of her getting married, running a family, cooking and being a daughter in law and wife is very unsettling. I dunno how she is feeling but I am worried sick. Personally I think the legal age for marriage should be pushed to 25. Come to think of it, even my sister got married when she was 22. How the hell did she do it? Now that I am 22 I think I can vaguely understand how apprehensive she must have been.

4. I have the worst luck in this world. I mean its amazing how much pleasure Murphy gets out of seeing me suffer. And my bad luck affects everyone around me. On the way to sivakasi on Friday evening we reached the station in the nick of time after a friend of mine left her bag in office and came to the station without it and we ran all the way back to office and got it. and then the next day the train was 5 hours late and we reached sivakasi at 12. on Sunday after the marriage I was to go to Madurai to attend the engagement of another friend and I caught a bus at 12 to Madurai. As luck would have it the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere, it was sweltering hot, absolutely no shade or trees and I was the only one going to Madurai. Everyone else was going to virudhunagar and got into another bus and I waited and waited and waited for what seemed like an eternity. Finally a bus came rumbling and was jam packed and there I was, stuck between a woman who had never heard of the word deo and a man who had obviously never taken a bath and I reached Madurai at 4, only to discover that I had missed the engagement!!! And then the next day morning the train again reached Chennai 4 hours late and i had to miss office (ok. this is the good part!!!:P ). It was all I could do to prevent myself from screaming out of frustration. Why me? I mean there are 137899853226839 other people in this world and Murphy has to play with me ALWAYS. Sigh!!

5. I am not able to decide about my views on many things. I mean I thought I was a pretty broad minded and open person and thought that nothing could actually shock me. But the other day I was in coffee day for a friends treat, a place I completely avoid going to because rather than having one coffee/milkshake there I would rather have bajjis at subbaiya’s for a week. Anyway I was there and I saw a couple getting extremely cozy right there in the middle of coffee day for everyone to see and I was disgusted. I don’t understand. What does being modern translate to? Does it mean having an open mind or does it mean wearing minimal clothes? Does it mean shedding your inhibitions and flaunting ur BF/GF to the entire world? What was the couple trying to prove? Their undying love for each other? Or that they didn’t care a damn about what people think about them and were exercising their freedom of expression? What is the limit for PDA or public display of affection? Don’t get me wrong. I am not a messenger sent by Bal Thackeray whose job is to track down all the people in love and shoot them down. But yes I get uncomfortable when I see a guy wearing jeans so low down on his hip that I feel like buying him a belt or something to pull them up, and I feel embarrassed when I see a couple doing anything more than holding hands. Call me old fashioned, call me conservative, tell me that I am behind times but it will take some time for me to assimilate this new definition of modern.

6. For the past one week I have listened to the song “You Fill up my senses” by John Denver and “Tosey Naina Lagey”(dunno which movie) approximately 5876 times. Both of them are beautiful songs and I just don’t tire of listening to them. Tosey naina lagey is soulful Hindustani music and is the kind which can move u to tears and listening to “you fill up my senses” will give u the feeling that all is well in this world. What an amazing voice John Denver has.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

I love it when people who would normally not call me, call me and wish me.

I love it when someone says “Happy Birthday Revs” and I go thank you thank you!!

I love it when my sister who normally cannot stay awake beyond 10 in the night is the first person to call me at 12.00 and says "Happy Birthday Shruthi". ( the fact that dubai is 2 hours behind us and 12 for us is 10 for them can be discounted. It’s the thought that counts)

I love it when my friends act all “ooooh!! We forgot to get u a cake man” and have a forlorn expression on their face and then at 12 ,drag me to the terrace and make me cut a beautiful chocolate cake. I don’t have the heart to tell them that I saw the "cake world" cover in the hall when they got it.

I still love cutting a cake, blowing out candles on my birthday and listening to the happy birthday song.

I love it when people who normally only pull my legs or tease me say / write nice things about me on my birthday. I know how difficult it is for you guys to write nice stuff about me. I mean I can almost imagine u guys going “Revs..errr..ummm ahhh!! Nice girl with smelly feet, bad hair and bad teeth. Heh heh”. Lol. So all u guys who wrote wonderful things about me on the cognizant birthday blog Thanks a lot!!

I love it when one of my best friends forgets my birthday and I message her saying “you forgot my birthday. Wish me NOW” and she calls and goes “jeeez I am sooooo sorry.”. yeah I am super shameless. When people don’t wish me on my birthday I message them and threaten them to wish me.

I love it when my grandmother says “kazhudha vayasu aaiduthu aana moola mattum valarave ila” (roughly translated as you have reached a donkey’s age but still have the maturity level of George Bush)

I love it when my friends tell me that they are gonna buy a book for my birthday and ask me what I want. I have to be the most shameless person because I sent a message to all those people and asked them to buy a book which I wanted!! :P (Psssst Mi!! I just finished reading my family and other animals and I fell in love with it. Thanks!! :D. others!! I am still waiting for my gift!! Humph!! :P)

I love it when my friends have good fun at my expense. Yeah!! It’s a long story. Will blog about it some time. In short one of them kept a bouquet at my desk in office, led me astray and kept me guessing about the sender of the bouquet till evening. Aravind, Sree, Sow, Trich,Jass - u dawgs!! Thanks for the bouquet and err thanks for having fun at my expense. :)

I love the fact that I can still love birthdays and not worry about the fact that I am actually getting an year older.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Why is it that I hate the course my life is charting and still feel pathetically incapable of doing something about it?

Why is it that I assume that people won’t mind what I say and will take whatever I say in the lighter vein? Why don’t I understand that people have feelings and can get hurt and feel bad unlike me?

Why MUST I act like I know everything that there is to know and why can’t I mind my own business?

Why is it so easy to convince me? Why do I always say yes to whatever people say? Am I indecisive? Am I a sycophant? Am I vulnerable? Am I stupid? Am I confused? Why don’t I know what I am?

Why is it that I lack the basic maturity to handle simple things in my life but seem to have lots of maturity in areas where it is of no use to me?

Why is it that though I have everything in life that I can ask for I crib?

Is it possible to love someone whom u haven’t seen, haven’t spoken to,dont know how they look, and who doesn’t even know that u exist just because u admire one trait in that person?

Is it possible to completely hate what you are doing, completely hate your job and yet be completely in love with life?

Is it possible to completely hate and totally love the same person at the same time? For that matter are love and hate mutually exclusive of each other?

Its been more than an year since I last cried because I have been really happy for the past one year, but yesterday night I was thinking “now why haven’t I cried for an year? Something is fishy”. Why am I scared of being happy?

The other day my manager told me that I had done a good job and gave me a high rating for everything this promotion cycle and told me she enjoyed reading my blogs. I should have been happy but I told myself “No Revs!! You hate this job. You hate the IT industry. You want to get out. Don’t be happy. No!!” why do I deny myself happiness?

If some one is nice to me I start thinking “ok!! Now what does he/she want” and when someone doesn’t talk to me I am like “huh!! Attitude?? See if I care”. Why am I so skeptical?

This post comes across as a post written by a morose, sad and suicidal person which is FAR far far from the truth. I am extremely happy and content with life as it is right now and life’s near perfect but these are questions which have been in mind for a long time and now they are out there because I decided I could do with a little bit of self introspection. It hasn’t helped because just like in college, though the questions are clear, the answers still elude me!! :)

Thursday, June 12, 2008

DISCLAIMER: The following post is quite an onerous read and I wrote it just to have a record of my Skandagiri trip. Read it if at your own risk and if u have the time!! :)

Even for a loquacious person like me there are certain times in my life when I am left speechless, awestruck and completely at a loss for words. Some of these times in my life have been

1. When I first had the idly in our college mess and I was left speechless as to how anyone could possibly make idlis like this.2. When I heard George Clooney say “does he make u laugh?” to Julia Roberts in Oceans Eleven and I was left speechless thinking it must be a crime to look so good.3. When I saw a new born baby for the first ever time in my life and held her in my trembling hands and I was left speechless wondering if anything in life could be more perfect than this.4. When I read some (actually all) of dinesh’s posts and I am left speechless thinking “oh my god!! What a gift this guy has”. Most of the times I hesitate to leave a comment because no comment of mine would actually do justice to his posts5. When I stood at a height of 3000 metres above sea level in skandagiri, looked down, saw the clouds floating below me and the mountains above them, a slight drizzle beating down on my face and a naughty breeze tickling the exposed portion of my neck. I stood there thinking if anything could be more beautiful and prettier than this. I felt sad that I had only two eyes and there was only so much beauty that I could soak up with them.

My trip to skandagiri. Where do I start from?It all began a couple of weeks back when I heard about the Chennai trekkers club started by a group of people from CISCO headed by Peter, from the friend of a friend and decided that rather than whiling away my weekends worrying about what I was going to do with my future I could go trekking or do something constructive. The registration was free and I immediately shot a mail to all my friends asking them to join. Quite surprisingly, given my group of high enthu friends I got positive replies from only two of them but it was a start nevertheless and we registered ourselves into the group and for the skandagiri trip on june 7th, 8th weekend.

Saturday morning 7 o clock came and fermie, suseela and I (akila was to join us in bangalore) found ourselves in the midst of 35 other highly enthused group of trekkers more or less the same age as us. I think one of the main reasons I completely enjoyed the trek was because of the absolutely brilliant company and highly vibrant group of people we trekked with. We boarded the Brindavan to Bangalore at 7 and I didn’t speak much to anyone in the train choosing instead to complete We the Living (bloody brilliant book. How I wish I could write book reviews!! Sigh!!) which I had bought a week back. It took sometime for us to get rid of our inhibitions and talk to the others and we had just got around to exchanging names when Bangalore came.

To reach skandagiri, we had to take a bus from Bangalore to Chikballapur which is 65 kms from Bang and then from there another 5 kms to reach skandagiri base hill. A game of Dumb charades in the bus helped us be friend a couple of others. Since there is no water or food or shop of any kind at the top we had to carry everything right from water to sleeping bags and we had to carry a weight of almost 5 kgs in our back pack up the hill As soon as we reached the base hill, took a “just-before-we-started-trekking” snap it started raining and we started the trek auspiciously with the rain gods blessing us. The problem with me is that when I really really enjoy something I find it difficult to express it or write about it which is why I cannot write book reviews. How can u write about an absolutely brilliant book in just 300 odd words? Its just not possible. I cannot even begin to write about the pleasure a cup of hot steaming tea, a plate of bhajjis and a good book on a rainy day give me or how much I love to drink a huge glass of chocolate milk shake on a hot summer day.

In the same way I don’t think any words of mine could do justice to how I felt when I climbed up that mountain with a good friend of mine, talking about nothing in specific but just enjoying each others company, helping each other at tricky places, sipping glucose to give us much needed energy, taking in the fresh air which is so rare, almost non existent in Chennai and admiring the natural beauty all around us. The view as we went higher was breath taking and the landscape was a very pretty blend of dark brown and green and looked very fresh because of the recent rains. Something tells me that nature must be a woman. So beautiful, deep, patient, helpful, kind, at times demanding, at times yielding, at times angry, at times playful and something which none of us can live without.

After an arduous but extremely fun trek of around 5 hours and after making many pit stops to rejuvenate ourselves and take photographs, we reached the top at around 8.00. it was dark and the entire city of Bangalore lay right below us decked in golden and silver lights. An absolutely spectacular sight. I wish I was a decent enough photographer but alas all my photos were so blurred that I have decided against sharing them with anyone. By this time we had gotten to know each other well and we spent a good one hour pulling each others legs, teasing grown up men who slept with turtles, teasing men who cracked sad jokes, the saddest being “what? You want to light ur cigarette? Well take my backpack. After I removed 2 bottles of water it has become lighter. Ha ha ha ha!!” , taking photos of women with scary eyes and men with hair longer than me!! ;) and generally having fun.

And then it began. It started off as a slight drizzle and then it started POURING like nobody’s business. It poured and kept pouring, drenching our bags, our sleeping bags, our tents but only partially dampening our spirit. The group of experienced trekkers headed by peter got into action, whipped out the strongest tents, set them up and pushed the girls in. Sigh!! The advantages of being a girl!! The poor guys not only got stuck with weak tents which blew away at night but also had to stand for a long time in the pouring rain setting up tents and taking care of dinner and other things. I must appreciate Chennai Trekkers for being extremely well planned and organized. I mean they made sure all of us had dinner and took very good care of the girls specifically and everyone generally. Hats off to Peter and Ramki the pillars of Chennai Trekkers.

It kept raining for a long time and there were five of us in a 5 feet by 5 feet tent soaked to the skin, shivering, cold, wet and singing at the top of our voices. It takes much more than rain, a cramped tent, wet sleeping bag and wet clothes to dampen the spirit of my friends and me. We cheered ourselves and irritated everyone else by singing at the top of our voices, so much so that it even stopped raining shortly after wards. Finally at around 2 we somehow pushed our bags, made some place and tried to catch some shut eye but it was impossible with the base of the tent all wet, our sleeping bags all wet, wet clothes and no space. Finally at around 4.30 we were slowly beginning to fall asleep and suddenly from somewhere a loud alarm rang jarring our senses and rudely waking us up. It was ironic. The alarm sang “it is raining now. Ooooooo” or some shit like that. One of my friends had given his cell and camera to me to protect it from the rain since we were the first people to go into tents. The jerk forgot to take it back and at 4.45 on a sleepless morning the bloody alarm rang waking us up. God!! With what choice words Aki and I scolded Jassi. Jass if you are reading this, we cursed you so much that if Bal Thackerey had been anywhere near our tent he would have put us behind bars for the continuous and tremendous use of foul language. We are not sorry. You deserved it then!! :P

Morning dawned and it was all misty and skandagiri is well known for its moon light trek and beautiful sun rise. Because of the mist we couldn’t see the sun rise but as the sun rose and dissipated the mist, the landscape shed all its inhibitions, lifted the veil of mist from its pretty face and stood out in front of us in all its glory which convinced me that nature HAS to be a woman. Playful as a naughty child one minute and shy as a newly wed bride the next.

I stood at the top of a rock looked down at the beautiful landscape, small houses, lovely floating clouds and thought “Global Warming?? Huh?? Where??” and a small voice inside me echoes a fear I have always had. That all this is only fleeting, its all surreal and there will be day when we will be buying the air we breathe and our future generation will never know what it is like to have the first rain of summer beat down on their face, will never smell the intoxicating smell of the mud after the rains, will never know the beautiful woman that nature is and I shiver a little and the chilly air is not the only thing to blame.

Anyway we started our down ward trek at around 7. reached the base hill by 9. hitched a ride from skandagiri to chikballapur on a cattle carrying van, reached the bus stop, boarded the bus, played another vigorous round of dumb C. It was amazing where we had all the energy from. I mean our legs were sore, our shoulders hurt, our head ached from lack of sleep but still we played with all the enthu we could muster. We reached the Bangalore station at 1.30 for our train at 2.30, boarded the train, bid goodbye to skandagiri and reached Chennai on Sunday night at 11.00

I was sorry when the perfect weekend ended and as I slept that night, though my legs ached my shoulders hut and my back had a sprain I had an overall great feeling and I am looking forward to my next trek with Chennai trekkers, the coolest trekking club in Tamil Nadu as they call themselves!! :)

Monday, June 02, 2008

1. Never ever ever again waste money (however little it is) by buying any book written by chetan bhagat. I picked up three mistakes of my life and I can write a book with the same title the three mistakes of my life being

1. Five point someone

2. One night at the call center

3. Three mistakes of my life

Ok!! Five point someone wasn’t all that bad but the other two books!! Saaaaaaaaaad!! Someone please ask Chetan Bhagat to stop writing. Buying this guys books is like watching a karan johar movie. U know its gonna be bad but u still go ahead and read the book and watch the movie for reasons known to no one. Next time Mr.Bhagat decides to write a book and I like a fool decide to buy it again and write a post on how sad it was please feel free to get in touch with me and kill me. I would be very grateful to you.

2. Moto L6 when dropped from the fourth floor of an apartment is shattered into approximately 47 different pieces. This has been tested and proved by the author. :(.Yep!! I accidentally dropped my cell into the lift of our building while attempting to close it. I had to then call the watchman and ask him to open the lift, jump down into the shaft and retrieve my sim card. My cell was beyond repair and I wish I had a camera so I could take a picture of my cell’s display and paste it here so you could see how I had tortured the fellow. I am now using my friend’s nokia 1600. May my moto’s soul rest in peace. Anyway with my cell gone I have lost all my contacts so if you figured in my contact list please do send me a message letting me know your number.

3. if u work in an IT company you would have come across the automatic doors which have sensors of some kind and open and close when the detect any movement around them. The lesson I learnt last week was that these doors can detect movements only when some one approaches the doors and not when someone stands right between the two doors. Here’s what happened to me last week. As I approached the doors, they opened and just when I was about to cross them my shoe strap snapped and I stood there in between the two doors trying to fix it. And suddenly I felt someone pushing me and when I turned around I was shocked to see that the doors were closing in on me and there I was caught like a little rat between the doors squealing for help. And then a good Samaritan came and the doors opened. It was such an embarrassing situation. So all u designers of automatic doors please make the doors intelligent enough to detect the presence of someone between them also

4. when your sister who recently moved to dubai calls u and starts crying DO NOT assume that she is crying because she is missing you. This was the conversation between my sis and me last weekPreethi: sob sob!! Sniff sniff!! ShruthiiiiiMe: (acting all smug thinking she is crying because she is missing me): what is it Preethi?Preethi: Shruthi can u believe it? They give milk in bottles here and not in packets like in India. Who gives milk in bottles??? Waaah waaahMe: (rolling my eyes and thinking)Sheeeesh!!! So much for missing me!!

Jokes apart i do miss her!! :(

In Happier Times - yeah!! the person with the idli like face on the left is my sis and the person on right who looks like she is the brand ambassador for anchor white is yours truly!! :) . This is one of my favorite pics taken when we went to Kabini some time last year!! beautiful place, lovely memories!!

5. Distance DOES the make the heart grow fonder. My sister and BIL when they were here wouldn’t trust me with a saefty pin at their place and now my BIL has gone as far as giving me his hardly used almost new 8 Gb Ipod nano saying he anyway doesn’t have time to listen to it and figured I would be the best person to make good use of it. You are now reading the blog of the proud owner of an 8 GB ipod nano. :). Sigh!! Is it possible to die out of happiness?? If yes then I would have died long ago!! Thanks guys!! (hey Milinta u dawg. i wrote this post before i read ur vile comment on my last post!! :P See even i can be grateful!! ;))